


1916, London

by writingdetritus



Category: Indiana Jones Series, Young Indiana Jones Chronicles
Genre: fem!indy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 06:15:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4993408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingdetritus/pseuds/writingdetritus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Indy cuts her hair before enlisted in World War 1.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1916, London

Staring into the mirror of her tiny bathroom, Indy yanked at her ponytail.

Remy had gone out to get some change and directions to the Belgian Army recruitment headquarters, leaving Indy alone in the tiny room they had gotten for the few nights they would be staying in London.

Tomorrow… she would probably be enlisted. Probably as a nurse in the beginning but… if she had any say she would join the men in the trenches, helping with everything that she could. But one thing was bothering her.

She had never cut her hair before.

As a child, Indy’s mother braided it, put it in bows, decorated the long dirty blonde locks to her content and Indy’s chagrin. When her mother died, Indy let it grow wild and dark under the Moab sun, letting the natural waves turn into tangled curls. Then in Princeton, especially with Nancy becoming her best friend and then sweetheart, her hair had become neatly pulled back into a slick ponytail, easy to keep under her hat.

But now… after 17 years of never touching it, she stared into the mirror, at herself, at her life, where it had been and where it was headed, and she knew it would have to all go.

She grabbed her pocket knife in one hand, her hair in the other and leaned over the sink. She quavered, remembering how her mother’s fingers had skillfully pulled and twisted. It was the one thing that she had truly let her mother do to make her pretty. Play with her hair, as if Indy were a doll. But she hadn’t been a doll to her mother as she sometimes felt. She had been her daughter…. An overwhelming amount of homesickness washed over Indy that instant and she set the knife down on the edge of the sink.

Taking a deep breath, Indy stood up straight and paced around the room, letting her hair hang loosely around her shoulders, feeling the weight of it. Her father would disapprove of her cutting her hair - do it to spite him, she thought, a maniacal laugh resounding in her head every time she thought about disobeying her father’s wishes. He always told her what to do: Do not speak unless spoken to, you will learn greek, you will learn logic, you will not run around or ride horses, you will stay inside and read this book in ancient aramaic…. the list went on. Running away to Mexico had been the first step to rebellion… True rebellion, a revolution in fact. But even that suddenly seemed trivial to cutting her hair.

How was this so hard to do?! Indy sat on the small window sill, and put her head down so she looked through a sheet of wavy, dirty blonde hair. She remembered Nancy pulling back her hair and putting flowers in it. Sweet Nancy…. who knows if they would see each other again. Maybe she should send her a lock of hair, in her own mother’s fashion. But Indy wanted Nancy to move on from her, Nancy, good  ol’ Nancy needed to have her own life, away from Indy’s crazy lust for the dangerous and overly exciting.

Maybe if she got it wet, would that help her cut it? Indy walked back to the sink and stuck her head under the faucet and the frigid water poured out in sputters. Indy shivered, brushing her fingers through her hair to get it all wet. She remembered how cold she had been in Russia as Tolstoy ate and drank, sang and joked inside the house of the peasants. Indiana, stubborn 10 year old, standing outside in the horrid storm that had decided to crop up. Her hair had stuck to the back of her neck, making the water run down her jacket and dress, making her teeth chatter with a horrific sound.

Her hair triggered more memories than she thought it would….

“Just cut the damn stuff off!” Indy muttered, staring back into the mirror above the sink, now at her dark, lank, dripping hair that curled in whichever it pleased on her face and neck. Picking up the pocket knife again, Indy gathered her hair and closed her eyes.

After the war she would grow it out again. If only for mother.

The hair came off after a few cuts, and Indy stared at it in her hands for a moment, like a dead, sad wet animal… a mink, that’s what it reminded Indy of. A dead, scraggly mink, laying her hands. Indy tossed it in the rubbish bin, shaking her head at her own morbid thoughts.

-

After about an hour, while Indy wrote in her journal, her hair was dry. Standing up, she looked in the mirror to see the catastrophe that she had caused. Where there had been long locks and slight curls,  her hair was a wretched, uneven mess, half of it above her chin, the other almost to her shoulder.

Just then, Remy reentered, waving a newspaper he had grabbed, but he stopped at the sight of Indy staring at him from the mirror, her neck and ears growing hot with embarrassment.

“Indy! What have you done?” Remy cried, raising his arms up in disbelievement.

“Probably something I shouldn’t have…,” Indy muttered, looking back at herself in the mirror. She had to fix this some how. Raising the knife to the longer side of her hair, she began to hack at it, but suddenly Remy’s hand was on her shoulder and he looked at her with his scoffing look he got when he thought she was too young for the world.

Indy glared back at him.

“Let me help you,” He offered, taking the knife out of her hand and pulled up the one chair in the room for her to sit. She did, secretly grateful he had volunteered to help her out. “First I think a pair of scissors would be more helpful than you’re ehhhh… knife,” Remy said, handing Indy the pocketknife back and rummaged in his bag for a pair of shears.

After a bit of Remy chatting away about his time walking around London, and what time they should arrive at the Belgian enlisting office, and Indy watching pieces of her hair fall to the ground in silence, Remy finally stopped his cutting and postulating “Helemaal klaar!” or as Indy translated with her limited amount of dutch - ‘all done!’.

Indy stood, apprehensive to see what would greet her in the mirror, but instead she was pleased to find herself with her hair curtained above her chin. Staring into the mirror, Indy felt her stomach clench as she thought of her mother again.

Hopefully she would have liked it.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> as always, i'm a giant sucker for girl indy and no one cAN STOP ME  
> note, this is before she meets Vicky if that is at all relevant to you


End file.
